I’ve got a million little things to share, including new pictures of Maui and some funny video from Wes’ birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

Meanwhile, I’ll leave you with this picture taken outside of our townhome. Little dude was hanging out in my window box of lettuce. I saw online that they eat bugs and lizards. Now I know why I hadn’t seen to many lizards around our door lately. Haven’t been too many bugs out their either. Too bad he doesn’t eat the squirrels who have been munching all the leaves off my Rose of Sharon! heh :P

Saturday, we dropped T off on the trail up at Unicoi Gap and then we drove over to visit Mercier Orchards in nearby Blue Ridge. It was a really cool place. We picked up a ton of apples and even picked up some sweet potatoes… yum! And good lord, you COULD SMELL the fried apple pies from the freakin’ parking lot! We didn’t get any but it was SO tempting. I LOVE the byline on their site: “Nothing says Mercier like a Fried Apple Pie.” haha

We ate lunch at a shi shi restaurant called Repaz on Main. It was okay, but the portions were a little small, even by bistro standards. The interior was gorgeous though and I wish I could have stolen the painting from above the fireplace. It would’ve looked supa-sweet in our living room. The cool thing about the place, that I found out later (and was disappointed that they didn’t advertise very well), was that they buy almost all of their food locally- farm to table.

After lunch, we drove by the Blue Ridge Reservoir which was pretty cool.

Overall, the weekend, as usual, passed by far too quickly. Sunday afternoon, we picked up Tim at Dick’s Creek Gap (he walked 16 miles this trip), went home and ate a delicious rib dinner (complete with Mom’s potato salad and deviled eggs(!)), and afterwards laid the Shadout Meeps to rest. She got a good spot.

The drive home was (thankfully!) uneventful and Mort, Sarah, & Harriet were excited to see us. :)

Georgia Pictures:

Tim’s Hike:

On our way home, we pulled into our complex just in time to see a red tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) sitting on top of a young squirrel while simultaneously fighting off a giaganticon raven who was trying to help himself to Hawky’s hard-earned meal. We stopped the car and watched for a minute. Both birds looked up at us like, “WTH are you looking at??!” Hawky took advantage of Raven’s momentary distraction and flew off with limp squirrel in tow. Raven took off after them in hot pursuit.

I wonder if Elaine from FCLA had a similar, exciting experience in her bird-watching class this morning! At least we didn’t have to get up at 7:30am! haha ;D

“No you idiot! Hawks EAT squirrels!!” sayeth the animal guy at minute 6:53 of this mashup of Seinfeld clips from the “Kramer/Merv Griffith Set” episode:

He called me again this morning around 9:30am and was heading back out on the trail. I guess he made it to the shelter yesterday just as it started to rain but they all got wet anyway, having to go out and cook their food outside the shelter. The shelter in the pictures I saw online looks big and roomy but unfortunately it’s open. He said they didn’t really get wet from it being open, it was more from the humidity and foggy mist in addition to running back and forth out there to make dinner.

This particular shelter had a privy and I asked him if he used it and I got an emphatic, “NO WAY!” Apparently it was pretty wet (no roof) and quite disgusting. I think holes were dug out in the woods behind the privy instead. :)

So, he estimates that he’ll be off the trail around 4pm or 5pm today. He’s looking forward to the nice sun and cool weather the front brought through yesterday. I think he’s also looking forward to a hot shower too! :)

When he gets to the end of the trail today he will have hiked approximately 46.7 miles this week.

To date, he has hiked approximately 74.6 miles of the AT (including the 8 mile approach trail @ Amicalola Falls).

He’s only got about 2075 miles to go before he has completed the entire trail.

Picture of Tray Mountain Shelter from Flickr user cyclopshiker:

He is planning on making it to Tray Mountain Shelter today (hopefully before the bad thunderstorms hit this afternoon), he’s got about 5.5 miles left to get there. Friday, he is hoping to push past Deep Gap and pop out on Hwy 76 right outside Dick’s Creek Gap. If he can get that far and if my folks are able to pick him up that night, he’s going to exit the trail that evening so he can have all day Saturday to get cleaned up and chill out before the long drive home on Sunday.

Before we hung up, I quickly checked the hourly forecast for him to let him know the bulk of the storms were to hit around 2pm today. As I was looking up the weather, two guys from the trail yelled goodbye to Tim. Apparently they had decided to take a zero mileage day over in Helen so a shuttle was picking them up to take them to a hotel. I heard them call out, “Last chance for beer and crab legs! You comin’?!” haha Tim reluctantly declined…it was a pretty tempting offer. :)

He will try to call tonight after I get home from work and I’ll post an update after that.

Meanwhile, here is a picture of the Unicoi Gap parking area (by flickr member tjc) from where Tim called me:

He was so exhausted that he couldn’t remember which shelter he was at tonight. He said that it was either Trey Mountain Shelter or Blue Mountain Shelter. I looked them up online and have a strong feeling that he’s probably at the Blue Mountain Shelter since it is 20.2 miles away from Blood Mountain. I gotta say, if he’s at Trey Mountain Shelter I’d be REALLY surprised since it’s approx. 27.1 miles from Blood Mountain. Can people hike that far in one day?? He sounded really wiped out and said he was pushing hard today so maybe they really did make it that far. I doubt it though.

He was worried tonight that he was making such good time that he would be in NC by Thursday and even farther in by Saturday forcing my folks to drive farther to pick him up. Geesh, like they would care. ::rolling eyes:: I told him just to listen to his body and keep going at a pace that felt good to him and not to worry about mom and dad-they would pick him up wherever he ends up on Saturday.

Then I asked him if he felt weird talking on a cell phone all the way out there and he said everyone else at the camp was doing the same thing! haha!! I guess there were about 15 people camping out with him tonight and he said they were all really cool. Then right about that time, his advil kicked in and he started to fall asleep on the phone (we’d only talked for two minutes! I think he was zonked). We agreed to catch up tomorrow. I told him I was blogging his trip and he said to tell all of you “hello!” :)

Again NOT Tim’s picture (don’t worry, he said he’s been taking tons of pictures so we can all live vicariously through him later. ::grin:: )… here’s what the Blue Mtn. Shelter looked like in February (by AT008):

He drove up to Mom & Dad’s on Sunday. There was hardly any traffic out that day so he made pretty good time up there (about 7 hours) and had no problem finding their place. Dad was still in Kansas visiting family, so Tim took Mom out for Mother’s Day dinner at the local chinese restaurant and they had a nice time.

The next morning, Mom dropped Tim off at Woody Gap where he, Bob, & Nathaniel left off in late December. She emailed me as soon as she got home and I got this message at work:

We left here about 7:05 a.m. and got up to the Woody Gap about 8:15. It was so windy up there that I had to hold the back door, so he could get his backpack out. He put on his hat and got another coat out and put on. It rained a little here this morning and the wind is still blowing. I told him he was lucky the backpack weighed quite a bit – that way he wouldn’t fly off the mountain. He will be TRYING to walk into it. Bet he will be one tried puppy tonight. Said he went thru his backpack 5 times last night to make sure he had everything and didn’t go to bed until 11:00 – up at 6:00 a.m. Your dad called at 5:00 a.m, he was 30 miles from Kansas City. Told him he probably woke Tim up. yak later. Love, mom

Later Monday evening, I got a very quick call (trying to save the phone battery) from Tim letting me know that he made it to the top of Blood Mountain. He got up there around 1pm and said that he could have kept going but it was just so beautiful up there, he decided to set up camp near the shelter and chill out. He said the shelter was in pretty bad shape but it didn’t matter because he was using his tent that night (despite the wind). He didn’t run into anyone all day.

I can’t wait to hear how his bear bag worked out. He practiced on the trees out back Saturday night working on the knots, etc. I’ll try to keep an update here as I hear how things are going up there.

BTW- The following picture is NOT from Tim. It’s just a picture of the Blood Mountain shelter I found online. Tim brought his camera with him so we’ll be sure to post HIS pictures when he gets home. :)